Christmas at Malagosto
by Flowersforzoe
Summary: What happens on December 25th at the world's most renowned school for assassins? Certainly, nothing holy. Oneshot.


This is a total (Christmas-themed) crackfic, written in about three hours solely for my own amusement. Oneshot.

 **Christmas at Malagosto**

"Sneeze in Venice," it was said, "and you would wipe your nose in Malagosto." The old Venetian saying rang true for centuries. Until one fateful night in the late 1980s, nobody left the small, mysterious island of Malagosto for the metropolitan city of Venice, Italy because they were ill.

* * *

It all started on December 22nd, 1986. Two agents of an organization known to the criminal world as Scorpia had just returned from a month long assignment in Zürich, Switzerland. It had been a freezing month, one of the coldest Decembers on record, and in the most populated city in Switzerland, that could only mean trouble.

The two agents, called Hunter and Cossack, had returned to Malagosto with two suitcases full of nondescript personal belongings, the relief of a successful mission, seventeen more added to their collective body count, and one really bad case of the flu.

It had seemed, to Hunter and Cossack, that the entire city of Zürich was overloaded with sick people. Everyone was ill with a disgusting case of the stomach flu, and the only surprise for the two agents was that only one of them had fallen ill as well.

Well, Hunter was surprised at this development. Cossack, the younger of the two men, had received an antidote for an anthrax outbreak that had caused the demise of his hometown when he was still a child. Since then, he had never gotten sick, not even with the smallest cold. It made his work ever more efficient than that of the average contract killer, as he never needed to take a sick day to just puke his guts out. In Cossack's opinion, his clients never took a day to rest, so why should he?

Hunter, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. He was the one unlucky agent of the pair who had not received an antidote of questionable legality in his childhood, and on the plane ride back to Malagosto, he had barely been able to take his head out of the toilet, and get his ass off of the floor. Luckily for Hunter, however, it was the floor of a clean Scorpia private jet.

Malagosto, known to few as the world's best school for learning to kill, and even fewer as Scorpia's School for Assassins and Assorted Mischief, was a welcome breath of fresh air to Cossack, who had spent the previous hour-and-a-half on an enclosed plane with a vomiting Hunter. Out of self-preservation, Cossack had purposefully kept as far away as humanly possible, not that Hunter blamed him. After all, self-preservation was the skill that Hunter valued most in an assassin.

When they had finally landed, not soon enough for Cossack, they had to go straight to meet with Julia Rothman to inform her of their success. Luckily, for both Hunter and Cossack, Hunter was fine until justafter they had finished their highly illegal task.

* * *

When they arrived at Julia's office, Hunter and Cossack both reeked of vomit. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Cossack, the newer agent, explained their success as Hunter clutched his stomach and tried his best not to throw up again. He managed to hold on for the rest of his partner's explanation. When Cossack finally finished up, Julia simply nodded once as if to say 'acceptable.' She reached over the expensive, newly finished wooden desk on ran a finger over Hunter's pale, sweaty cheek. The poor agent barely even registered the touch. He had a high fever and was delirious. Cossack had had to help him walk to Julia's office, as he could barely function enough to do relatively simple tasks, such as move his long legs, or be coherently aware of where the hell he currently was.

"Hunter?" Julia asked, obviously concerned, "Hunter? Hunter! Are you okay?" She didn't receive a response from the man, who hadn't even registered that it was his name being called. Turning to his partner, she asked: "Cossack, what the hell is wrong with him?"

"He has the flu, ma'am," Cossack said quietly. He was careful to conceal his normally heavy Russian accent.

Julia raised an eyebrow, which was a gesture that she had stolen from no one other than Hunter, himself. "The flu?" she questioned.

"The flu, ma'am," Cossack confirmed, "Everyone in Zürich had it except for me. Ma'am." It was obvious that Hunter was terrified of Julia. His over-politeness and shaky voice, both of which would be trained out of him at a later date, were the dead giveaways.

She nodded again and stole another glance at the sick agent. His eyes were half open, and he was very clearly miles away. Where, though, Julia was unsure of. "Take him to his room," she instructed Cossack, "He needs rest. The two of you have another mission in three days time." She handed him an envelope, which outlined all of the details.

"On Christmas?" the reamining sentient agent questioned.

"Do you have an issue with that, Cossack? Scorpia doesn't care about holidays, especially religious ones. Besides, it's not like your family is around to celebrate with you anyways," Her words hurt, but Cossack simply shook his head once and took this as his cue to leave. He helped Hunter out of the chair next to him and began walking him out of the opulent office. "Remember, Cossack," Julia said, offering him some parting words, "Scorpia doesn't care about trivial things such as holidays. Hell, Scorpia doesn't care about individuals either, especially replaceable ones."

Her words stung, but Cossack didn't let it show. He left her with another 'yes ma'am' and promptly left the room, a delirious Hunter in tow.

* * *

Three days later, on Christmas Day, the entire island of Malagosto was sick with Hunter's flu. It was through no fault of Hunter, or even Cossack for this outbreak. Some fool had decided that it would be smart to burn both of the exposed agents' clothes. Unfortunately for the island's residents, the disease was airborne, and unaffected by the high temperatures of the fire. They had all inhaled the microbes and had all paid dearly in sweat, vomit, fevers, and delirium.

Hunter himself was improving, though he was still barely coherent. Cossack was growing more and more concerned about the next day's mission. All of the faculty, including Sefton Nye, Oliver D'Arc, Hatsumi Saburo, Gordon Ross, Ejit Binnag, and Professor Yermalov were ill, as were the island's two doctor's: Dr. Karl Steiner and Dr. Three, as well as the five current students. Julia Rothman, however, was perfectly healthy, as she had left the island the same night that Hunter and Cossack had arrived, and had had very little exposure to the disease from her ephmeral meeting with the two of them. The only two people who were healthy on Malagosto were Julia, in her red evening ball gown, and Cossack, who was wearing a perfectly tailored tuxedo.

"I cannot believe this!" she crowed, "I'd have thought that Hunter would have improved by now! Who would have guessed the entire island would have gotten sick. Save you," she said pointedly at Cossack. Historically, she was not his biggest fan. Cossack quickly outlined the situation, and by the end of it, Julia was fuming. "Nobody can even move?" she roared, "So what you're saying, is that you, who are basically still a fetus in the realm of Scorpia, are the only one who can confidently say his name and location?" Cossack nodded once. "Everyone else is incapacitated!" she exclaimed. Cossack nodded again. Then, Julia did something surprised even Cossack. She put her head in her hands and her elbows on her desk. Cossack had enough intuition to identify that this was a moment of great weakness and vulnerability for her that he would never see again.

After what seemed like an eternity to Cossack, Julia Rothman lifted up her head and fully regained her composure. "Well, Cossack, we have a bit of a situation on our hands." Situation, his ass, Cossack knew that what they had on their hands was a clusterfuck. "So," Julia continued, "We have to leave for Venice in thirty minutes to make the party. At said party, we need to take out three dozen high-profile guests and get the hell out of there in the span of two minutes without hurting anybody else. We can't do something simple, like a poisoning, as we need to make a statement. And to our client, a statement means a bloodbath for the thirty-six people who wronged him. We have two healthy agents: you and I. We don't have time to contact any help, as no one is near enough to assist us," she paused to sigh, "Any ideas, Cossack? Scorpia can't lose out on this. Our reputation would be an absolute joke if word got out that we failed such an easy task, and you do know how the criminal underworld loves to gossip. Additionally, we'd be losing out on so much money: our client is offering us $1 million British pounds per head. That's $36 million pounds, Cossack."

Cossack tried to wrap his head around such a large sum of money. It was an obscene amount, and if all goes well, at least some of it would be his. "So, Cossack," Julia said, interrupting his train of thought, "Any ideas?"

"How many people can you shoot in ninety seconds?" Cossack blurted out before he realized what he was saying. Julia gave him a strange look and raised an eyebrow.

"What?" she questioned, clearly puzzled.

Cossack's heart was pounding. He felt like a fool for just blurting that question out, and he needed a way to redeem himself, as he was already on thin ice with Rothman. "I don't know," he stuttered, "What if we were to bring all of the targets into one secluded room, and just massacre them before escaping through a window?"

Julia shook her head quickly. "Not bad Cossack, but it won't do. Our client wants for the other guests at the party to see the statement we make, so it has to be in front of them. Luckily, everyone was scanned for weapons, so it's highly unlikely that you'll have anyone fighting you. Besides, our client is a very powerful and influential man, and everyone at the party should know not to mess with him. Well, except for the ones we were sent to kill, I guess." Cossack ignored her attempt for humor and tried again to think of a legitimate way to murder thirty-six people spread across two floors of a mansion in the span of 120 seconds, and with just as many agents as minutes to complete their task. It was, as he had realized earlier, an absolute clusterfuck.

"Okay," he began, "So we have to kill eighteen people each. If we want to give ourselves ample time to get the hell out of there, we have about ninety seconds to complete the killings. That equates to one murder every five seconds." Doing the math made the situation seem even more hopeless. Cossack was about to unhelpfully analyze this data, but he was blissfully interrupted by the door bursting open.

Two men that Cossack had never seen before stepped into Julia's office: one was a tall, middle-aged man who looked very German, and the other was a shorter, much younger man who appeared to be of Latin American descent.

"Max!" Julia exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with hope and recognition, "I had no idea you were coming!" She got up off her chair, and walked over to the German, kissing him on the cheek. The man was none other than Max Grendel. He sat on the executive board of Scorpia and was one of the most ruthless men in the world. Confidence radiated off of him, which reminded Cossack of Hunter. They had the same cockiness emanating from them, and, as far as Cossack could tell, both men always had on an arrogant smirk.

"Hello, Julia," he smiled, "This trip wasn't planned, but I just wanted to bring Esteban here," he said, gesturing at his companion, "for an evaluation. I believe him to be a good fit here on the island." Julia nodded quickly and maniacally.

"That's just perfect!" she exclaimed, "I have the perfect first test for him!" Cossack was growing genuinely concerned. He had never, in his admittedly short life, heard anybody use the word 'perfect' that much, nor heard anyone that excited about murder. Well, he supposed, this was Scorpia, after all. "Cossack, grab each of these fine gentlemen a suit and a machine gun, and meet me at the jet in five minutes." Cossack nodded, and bolted from the room, knowing that they had finally found their solution.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Julia, Grendel, Esteban, and Cossack were all on Julia's private jet, flying to Venice for an extravagant Christmas party. It would be a celebration, unlike any other one that Cossack had ever been a part of. There had certainly never been any murdering during Christmas dinner in Estrov. Surely, Cossack's father wouldn't have allowed that. Even when he was under Sharkovsky's lock and key, there wouldn't have been a bloodbath on Christmas Day. Well, Cossack supposed, at least the blood would be a festive Christmas red.

"Have you ever practiced shooting accuracy?" Julia questioned Esteban. He shook his head. In an instant, the young man was handed a machine gun and told to practice his accuracy by shooting champagne glasses from different ranges. His score was passable, but compared to Cossack, who had just spent the past couple of months with Hunter, they were disgusting.

* * *

As the plane began to land, Cossack began discussing strategies with his three counterparts. One they landed in Venice, they would we be whisked away, to their client's mansion via helicopter. The helicopter would drop down a ladder, and the four of them would climb through a window on the third floor. At exactly 10:00 p.m., they would travel downstairs, with Julia and Cossack taking the first floor, and Grendel and Esteban taking the second. They would each be responsible for taking nine lives in ninety seconds before hurling themselves out the nearest window and sprinting to the helicopter, which would already be in the air with the ladder hanging down for them the climb up. It was a rough plan, though Cossack felt infinitely more confident now that he and Julia had Grendel and Esteban to help out. None of them were sure how loyal Esteban truly was, but they certainly had offered to pay him enough for helping them out with the Christmas Day Massacre of 1986.

The first part of the plan went off without a hitch. At 10:00, the Scorpia people traveled to their respective floors. Before he could take a shot, however, Cossack was stopped by a young woman, who was completely shitfaced drunk. She scolded Cossack, who was cradling a machine gun, for not being 'festive enough.' She put a red-and-white Santa hat on top of his short blonde hair, which made him incredibly uncomfortable. Unfortunately for Cossack, she was not on his list of people to massacre, so he had to simply ignore her and go about his business.

At exactly 10:02, the first gunshot rang out from the second floor, and in the next ninety seconds, Cossack counted thirty-five more. He was glad that nobody had missed their targets. He almost was crushed by a jumping Esteban but had managed to throw himself to the left, seconds before the Latin American landed in the grass in a deep crouch. The two youngest agents sprinted to the helicopter and were joined seconds later by Grendel and Rothman, who had each done a final sweep of their respective floors.

As the helicopter began to fly away, pandemonium broke out in the mansion. People were running for their lives. Sirens rang out from nearby. Cossack was just pleased to be in the relative safety of the Scorpia helicopter.

* * *

When they arrived back at Julia's office, she and Grendel made the executive decision to leave this mission off of Scorpia's official record, as the wipeout of Malagosto made everyone involved look really bad. "What do you say," Grendel proposed, "That we just split the money evenly, and don't even involve Scorpia? It'll be a clean split: $9 million pounds each, as we evenly distributed the work." This was perfectly agreeable to Julia, Esteban, and Cossack.

The four agents were sharing a glass of expensive red wine, laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation (Scorpia being taken out by the flu!) when the door opened. In came a still delirious Hunter, who stumbled over to Cossack. He clutched his stomach, clearly feeling nauseous. He quickly stole the ludicrous Santa hat from on to of Cossack's head and vomited into it. When he was finished, he tried to hand it back to Cossack, with a half-conscious mumble of "Merry Christmas!"

* * *

Welp, it's after midnight here, so happy Boxing Day, everyone! Hope you all enjoyed this!

(Thanks Pogs, for the name of the school;))


End file.
